Today was another travel day for us as we were leaving Bangkok, Thailand, and heading for Beijing - our first experience in China! We had arranged a taxi to arrive at our hotel around 5:15am to take us to the airport. Right on time our taxi driver met us in the lobby. We said our goodbyes to the hotel staff and packed out bags in the taxi heading for the Bangkok International Airport. The taxi driver entertained us by playing American music for us during the early morning drive – he particularly liked the rapper Eminem, so we heard a lot of familiar music during the drive.
As we approached the airport, we were surprised by how large it was. We found our check-in area for China Southern Airlines, and were excited to see that it was a part of the Skyteam Elite Alliance (the group in which Delta Airlines is a part of). We waited about 15 or 20 minutes to check-in, and once we finally did check-in we were surprised by how long the process itself seemed to take. Once we had our boarding passes, we headed to the passport control section of the airport. The line was extremely long, but luckily moved quickly. We waited about 25 minutes to get to the front of the line where the passport control agent reviewed our departure forms and took our pictures for their records. From there, we easily made our way through security and the gate, but not before stopping for a few minutes to get some breakfast at Auntie Anne's (the pretzel chain in the USA).
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| A view of the Bangkok International Airport. |
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| A view of the gate for our flight to Beijing. |
We boarded our plane right on time, and before even taking off, Erin had fallen asleep. She didn't even realize a meal had been delivered at her seat during the flight until James woke her up to eat. The flight was about 2.5 hours, and took us to Ghanzou, China – which is a very large city in southern China. We lost 1 hour during the flight and arrived in Ghanzou at about 12:20pm. Our connecting flight to Beijing left at 2pm, so we knew we wouldn't have much time between the flights. We followed the chain of people heading toward immigration in the airport and jumped into the very slow moving “foreigner” line that would allow us entrance into China. Before we left the USA to take this trip we had both obtained a Visa to enter China for 90 days.
When we got to the front of the line the agent took a picture of us and compared it to our passport photos in addition to verifying our Visas. The gentlemen took a really long time examining James's documents, this could have been due to the fact that James looks very different from his passport photo (he has a beard right now), as well as the fact that some of the ink from another stamp in his passport smudged onto the Chinese Visa page. Once we had successully entered the country, we needed to claim our checked baggage, go through initial security, re-check our baggage for the next flight, and then go through security once again. All of this went smoothly, except getting through the final security checkpoint. The guidelines were a bit different than what we were used to, and we some difficulty getting through. The security personnel had to dump out all of the contents in Erin's daypack and run it through the machine three times before letting her pass through. They had to send James's backpack through twice and also confiscated his antibacterial handgel, about which he was a bit disappointed.
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| Our on-board breakfast during the flight: chicken, rice, vegetables, fruit, and a few other things we couldn't identify! |
Once we finally got through security, it was nearly 1:40pm and we knew our flight would be closing its doors very very soon, so we began running through the very large Ghanzou airport. We kept running and running and running...the gate seemed incredibly far from the security checkpoint and we were both exhausted (and quite sweaty) by the time we arrived. Luckily, they allowed us to board the plane. We were in fact, the last people on board. We squeezed into our seats and tried to re-organize just a little bit because the security personnel had emptied out everything from our bags and just thrown things back in quickly. The Chinese gentleman sitting next to us on the flight (Bob is what he told us to call him because he felt that his Chinese name was too difficult to pronounce) was very friendly and chatted with us throughout the flight. He was heading to Beijing to take an examination to become a financial planner. His English was impeccable and h knew a lot about America and desired to go there someday to work or live. However, that being said, he was also very happy to be living in China. As our plane neared Beijing, we could actually see some of the smog in the air and Bob suggested that we purchase some facemasks to wear if it bothered us at all.
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| Our snack on the flight - a dumpling, "something" gelatin, a roll, some vegetables, and rice pudding with peas. |
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| The sunset somewhere over China. |
Once we arrived in Beijing, Bob walked with us to the baggage pick-up area. We thanked him for his help and wished him luck on his exam after exchanging e-mails. We stopped at an ATM before heading directly toward the metered tax sign. We showed the attendant the name of our hotel and he directed us to a taxi. We jumped in put our seatbelts on, and began our journey from the Beijing airport to our hotel. The drive was very interesting as we were both eager to see what the city looked like. The buildings outside were enormous! The entire stretch from the airport to the hotel (about 30 minutes) was filled with large buildings from hotels to big businesses. We arrived at our hotel, and checked in. We were notified that our tour group was having a meeting that was taking place as we checked in. So, we headed to the meeting before doing anything else. We walked into the meeting as our tour guide, a native Chinese gentleman who introduced himself as Howard, was explaining some basic information about the itinerary. We listened carefully and learned more about some of the details of the trip, including the fact that we have yet another overnight train on this journey. Once the meeting dismissed, we hurried up to our room to freshen up before meeting the group for dinner.
Howard led us on the public bus to a nearby restaurant. The public bus (number 108) was very clean and relatively empty when we got on. About 10 minutes later we arrived near the restaurant. In the restaurant, we had our own private room for the group. We sat at a round table, with a center piece that rotated, so we could easily move beverages or food around the table by sliding it one way or the other. Our tour guide ordered a “family-style” dinner for us, meaning he ordered a bunch of entrees for each of us to sample instead of us each ordering our own dishes. We did a group toast with rice wine (which was very strong) and then we began eating. In China they use chopsticks, so Howard gave our group a brief demonstration on how to use them. Some people opted to use regular silverware, but we used the chopsticks. Our meal included some Chinese staples: fried rice, pork meatballs, sesame lamb, chow mein chicken, bok choy, broccoli, and corn. It was fun to sample everything, and we were pleasantly surprised by how much fresher and healthier the Chinese food in China was compared to the Chinese food we were used to eating in America.
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| Aboard the public bus in Beijing. |
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| Our restaurant from the outside - the Chinese lanterns were everywhere! |
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| We all gathered around this table - it was a tight squeeze with 15 people! |
After our group dinner concluded, we walked to a nearby food market. At the market, they were selling all sorts of things – from candied fruits to squid and octupus, to beetles! It was interesting to see the different foods that the people in China eat. We had no desire to try any of it though! After the market, we wandered into a few of the small food stores that were nearby. We purchased some water (because Howard informed us that we should not drink the water here). We took the bus back to our hotel and Howard gave us instructions for the next day. He informed us that we'd be going to the Great Wall of China and that we would have to purchase and bring our own lunches with us because food wasn't readily available there. So, we opted to go to a nearby supermarket to get some snacks. The supermarket was overwhelmingly large. While we saw many familiar products (milk, crackers, and cookies), we had a hard time figuring out what a lot of things were. We did our best to purchase some snacks for the next day and headed back to the hotel. We settled into the hotel and headed to bed. It had been a very long day and we were both very tired.
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| Some of the culinary delights awaiting a barbecue rack - including squid tentacles. |
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| Here, you can see giant insects as well as "mystery (to us) meat." |
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| Finally, some starfish as well as - you guessed it - baby shark. |
